


you aren't like him

by andromedagalaxy



Series: Philkas College Verse [52]
Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 14:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13549278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromedagalaxy/pseuds/andromedagalaxy
Summary: “But,” Lukas says, stammering. “But I, I mean...” He scoffs, his ears going hot.“The guilt still eats you up,” she says.“Yeah,” he says.“And you’d do anything to change how you acted,” she says. “Anything to right those wrongs.”He feels sick. He doesn’t want to be anything like that fucker. And yet when he thinks about it, the sense it makes...he feels fucking sick. He doesn’t want to think about it. He hates everything about it. He hates that it feels right, true, and he can almost feel how he hit Philip in the hallway. How he pushed him away at the party, at the lake. How many times he’d hurt him. Then kiss him.Fuck.





	you aren't like him

Lukas sits in the purple chair and feels his cheeks heat up under Rachel’s last question. He’s been seeing her since they got back from Vegas, though now that Fall classes have started he has to go on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays. He doesn’t know how much it’s helping him—he’s never been the biggest fan of therapy, but she did remind Lukas that they needed to sign up for graduation when they’d completely forgotten to do it. Philip claimed he hadn’t forgotten, but Lukas knows he totally did. 

They’re really distracted lately. It’s their goddamn senior year of college and Lukas can hardly believe it. Gabe is still recovering and they try to get to Tivoli as much as possible to check up on him. Philip is starting to deal with the assault case with that fucking asshole and it’s giving Lukas more anxiety than he usually has. They’re trying to figure out when the hell they’re gonna have their wedding, how to deal with all the things they have to plan for. And—they’re still actually married. They’re going to remain actually married. Which both thrills and terrifies Lukas to death because he keeps feeling like he needs to tell people. 

“Lukas?” Rachel says.

He zones back in and gets flustered by the question all over again. “Uh,” he says, shifting a little bit. “I mean. Yeah. I do—I worry about protecting him. A lot, uh—all the time.”

“And you think the whole thing with the assault case—it’s drawing the memories of the kidnapping and murders back to the surface?”

Lukas’s heart is beating really fast. They’ve been sorta tip-toeing around this subject for weeks now, and he only told her the whole story last visit. She seemed horrified, almost looked at him like he was making it up until he started crying. He hates doing this shit without Philip, talking about the worst parts of his life, but then again questions like this one come up and he’s happy Philip isn’t here to see him lay out his insecurities. Lukas knows he knows them, that Philip knows every little detail about every inch of his life. But he hates how he sounds when he says it out loud. 

“Yeah,” Lukas says, nodding. “It just, uh—reminds me of what I couldn’t do. And it makes me nervous, like—when he, uh—when he took us I was just—fucking paralyzed with fear and then it just—all happened.” He feels a little dizzy and he wonders if Philip is waiting outside for him already. He’ll always remember the moment when Ryan took them. The gun, the threatening, the way he advanced. Lukas had tried to shield Philip but he was too afraid. Too vulnerable. And with the darkness came the guilt. He knew he was leaving him alone. Leaving him alone with the biggest danger in their lives. He couldn’t do enough. He wasn’t strong. He couldn’t save him. 

“Remember to throw away all blame,” Rachel says. “There are certain things you can’t control, and dwelling on something that is in the past, already set in stone, only adds to your anxiety. Try to remember that the assault that happened to Philip is not the same as what happened to the two of you, as much as you’re correlating the memories. You said the man—his name was Ryan?”

Lukas swallows hard, nodding. He hates even hearing it, like saying it out loud might conjure him back up again.

“You said you don’t want him to be your boogeyman,” she says. “You need to stop demonizing his name. I see how you tense up when I say it.”

He hates how she knows him, already, some fucking how. He wonders how transparent he fucking is. 

“Make it your mantra. Something you remember, that you say in times of difficulty or fear. Ryan is dead. Ryan cannot hurt me. Ryan cannot touch Philip. Ryan is gone.”

Lukas blows out a breath and nods. 

“If you say it like that, in times of doubt, it’ll become commonplace. As will his name. As far as this new situation, you seem to be taking it so far as to worry about every moment when you and Philip are apart, is that correct?”

He shifts his lips to the side. “Yeah,” he says. 

“As soon as you disengage this situation from your past trauma, it’ll be easier to realize it isn’t something that’s going to be the norm, in any capacity. You said you haven’t encountered much homophobia here, since you started college?”

“Yeah,” Lukas says, in a rush of breath. “Yeah, thank—thank God, this guy has been the only real issue. I was expecting more but I guess that’s…that’s…”

“How you were raised,” she says, sympathetically. “But you can look at that and this—it was a fluke. This man, this—this Dour, he’s gone now too. Not in the same way Ryan is gone, but he’s removed from you, removed from Philip. This situation in no way calls you out as inadequate.”

Lukas chews on his lower lip and traces the lines of Philip’s heartbeat on his wrist.

“Would you think of Philip as inadequate if the situation were reversed? If the assault had happened to you when he was out of town?”

Lukas tenses up again. “No, no. Absolutely not.”

“How is it different?” Rachel asks. 

“Because—because it’s like—” His heart is beating a little faster and he feels stupid. 

“Do you believe you’re still blaming yourself for how you treated Philip in high school?” Rachel asks. “All these years later? And it’s bleeding over to every situation in which Philip gets hurt?”

Lukas sighs. “Sounds pretty spot on.” The tears are prickling in his eyes now and he looks at his watch. “Yeah, I—yeah, I mean. Yeah.”

“And you said you had that situation where you almost tracked this Dour down,” she says, clinically. “And Philip wasn’t happy about it.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says, feeling dumber and dumber with every passing moment.

“Why do you think you felt the need to track him down?” she asks.

Lukas shakes his head. “I wanted to defend Philip. But Philip, uh—said that it was more about defending my own pride. Territory. Which made me feel gross, but he’s right.”

“Do you think that it’s possible that you see some of your past self in Dour?” Rachel asks, a question that sends ice through his veins. “That you’re so intent to exact revenge because you’re still attempting to make amends for how you behaved towards Philip in high school? And this seemed, subconsciously, like the perfect opportunity?”

It makes him feel fucking ill. He hates Dour. He hates him. “No, like...that guy is an asshole.”

“You’ve called yourself that exact same word when we talk about high school.”

He squirms a little bit. “Yeah, but...”

“It’s interesting that the assault took place in the form of a kiss instead of a punch,” she says. “It could very well be an indicator of the same sort of person. Violently closeted and lashing out.”

“But,” Lukas says, stammering. “But I, I mean...” He scoffs, his ears going hot. 

“The guilt still eats you up,” she says. 

“Yeah,” he says.

“And you’d do anything to change how you acted,” she says. “Anything to right those wrongs.”

He feels sick. He doesn’t want to be anything like that fucker. And yet when he thinks about it, the sense it makes...he feels fucking sick. He doesn’t want to think about it. He hates everything about it. He hates that it feels right, true, and he can almost feel how he hit Philip in the hallway. How he pushed him away at the party, at the lake. How many times he’d hurt him. Then kiss him.

Fuck.

He briefly looks at Rachel and feels really, really resentful. She seems like she knows.

“Lukas,” she says. “You two are in a very healthy relationship. You’ve grown, you’re getting married, you’re in a completely different space than you were then, in every capacity. You have to forgive yourself. I know without meeting him that Philip has absolutely forgiven you.”

Lukas shakes his head. “He’s like…he’s like, the best. And I just—Jesus, I don’t know. My mind is so messed up when it comes to him because he’s the kind of perfect that makes me feel like nothing is ever gonna be good enough.”

“Right there, that’s where you need to start,” Rachel says, scooting forward in her seat. “He loves you for who you are. He does not see you as inadequate, no matter what’s transpired between you and in your lives, separate and together. You need to learn to love yourself, too.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says, at a loss.

“And when you leave here—Philip is gonna be waiting for you, right?”

“Probably,” Lukas says, nodding. 

“So think about it, take a good look at him, and realize that it’s more often than not that he’s safe, even when he isn’t with you. He’s okay when he’s alone. Something bad is something rare.”

~

He’s always hated therapy. Sometimes the clarity makes him ten times more confused than he was to begin with. He walks down the hallway and types out a message to Philip. He’s more eager to see him than he usually is.

_You outside? <3_

He barely takes a breath before his phone buzzes in his hand. _Just got here :)_

Lukas picks up the pace a little bit, turning the corner and heading for the door. He sees him sitting on the bench across the sidewalk—Lukas immediately feels lighter, less tense, the strange vulnerable feeling therapy drapes over him sliding off his shoulders. He wishes nothing would happen to them ever. He wishes they could erase all the Ryan and Dour bullshit like that weird Jim Carrey movie. He wishes he’d stop being so fucking insecure about his own damn self because he knows Rachel is right. Philip does love him.

He can see it in his beautiful face when he lights up. Just like he’s doing right now when he notices Lukas come out of the building. 

“Hey,” Philip says, getting to his feet. “How’d it go?”

Lukas shrugs, walking over and meeting him in a kiss. He tugs him into a hug, holds him close and breathes him in. “You know. I hate it,” Lukas says, swaying back and forth a little bit before he pulls back.

Philip’s brows furrow and they start walking leisurely alongside the line of bikes hooked up beside them, Philip taking Lukas’s hand in his own. “Like worse today?”

“I just like—I don’t know, sometimes it feels like therapists are superheroes that can read my mind and it makes me feel weird.” The Dour thing is hanging with him, but he doesn’t want to mention it, at least not yet.

Philip snorts, shaking his head. “Is she making you feel any better about everything?”

Lukas shrugs again. “Yeah, I guess. Sometimes it’s just hard to like, face it all. Think about everything all at once and how it fits together. Our life is fucking weird.”

Philip nods, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But we made it, huh? We’re here.” He leans in and kisses Lukas’s shoulder. “And we’re fucking _married_ ,” he whispers, like there might be someone around here to spill their secret, but he just can’t keep himself from mentioning it.

Lukas knows they have to go to court day after tomorrow and face Dour again, but he doesn’t want to bring that up. He knows the case should be pretty fucking open and shut, especially with Helen and Nathan helping him, and the cops that responded to the call. He hopes it’s done by the end of the month, so that’ll be one less thing on their plate. He knows Helen will be getting in tomorrow sometime, but he isn’t sure yet if Gabe has convinced her to let him come with. Lukas hopes he does get to come, if only for the fact that having both of them there will make Philip feel safer.

But he definitely, definitely doesn’t want to talk about that until tonight, when they’re calm and warm and sated in their own bed, Izzy and Samson snoring somewhere nearby. He wants to talk about something else, and then head to the little surprise he has planned for the two of them. 

“Speaking of married,” he says, the two of them crossing the street a little slower than the crowd around them. “Our second wedding is on the horizon—”

Philip snorts, leaning into him.

“Are we, uh—still thinking the December after we graduate? That gives us a little over a year to get all ready. Plenty of time.”

“Might be a little hard to get people to come, if you’re talking around Christmastime?” Philip says.

Lukas scoffs. “Well, if they love us, they’ll show up.”

“You’re terrible,” Philip says, laughing. But Lukas knows he’s got him with the aesthetics of that time of year, especially back in Tivoli. December has been something they’ve both sorta known for a while now. “Yeah,” Philip says. “Yeah, that’s—a good time.”

Lukas looks down at him, and even though they’re already married this still feels like a big deal. It’s their real wedding, for all intents and purposes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Philip says. “We can nail down the date later but I have a feeling you’re aiming for a couple days before Christmas.”

Lukas grins. “Guess you can read my mind too,” he says.

Philip shakes his head, clicking his tongue. 

“So since we decided on that,” Lukas says, turning onto 30th street, “I planned a little thing for us to do. A little wedding thing.”

“Oh yeah?” Philip asks, and he’s got that tone where the excitement is rising in his voice, which Lukas loves. 

“Yeah,” Lukas says, forgetting all the things he’s been worried about so he can enjoy this experience with Philip. “You’re gonna like it.”

~

They sit in the back room of City Sweets in front of their long lace table, watching as the girls bring them piece of cake after piece of cake after piece of cake. Lukas looks at Philip out of the corner of his eye and feels his heart swell with warmth when he sees the happiness on his face, the smile plastered there. There are beautiful tiered cakes on display to their right and to their left, all around them, and Lukas is like, freaked out by how all of them look like edible pieces of art. 

The last girl brings in their tenth piece of cake and smiles at them. “Enjoy!” she says. “Make sure you write down your rankings and then we can see if you want to do any combinations.”

“Awesome,” Lukas says. “We will.”

“Thank you!” Philip says, and the girl nods happily at them, closing the door and leaving them alone. Philip turns to Lukas and beams at him. “This was a great idea, babe.”

“Knew you’d be excited,” Lukas says, almost getting overwhelmed as he looks over their options. 

“I don’t know what the hell to try first,” Philip says. “Champagne and three berry? Red velvet and cream cheese? Chocolate stout and passion fruit? I’m gonna die. Let’s just get them all. We have that casino money, we can just use it all on cake.”

Lukas snorts, smiling hard. “Oh,” he says, remembering what he got and shoved in his pocket before therapy. He shifts to the side just as Philip is pulling the milk chocolate and hazelnut ganache towards him, and yanks the ring pop out of his pocket. He holds it out towards Philip. “Happy one month wedding anniversary, angel face.”

“Oh my God,” Philip says, laughing. “I didn’t even realize, with all the shit going on.” He grabs the ring pop out of Lukas’s hand and grins at him, tugging him in for a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Lukas says, kissing him again. 

Philip pulls back and runs his thumb back and forth across Lukas’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re going to therapy. But if you hate it you can stop.”

Lukas looks at him and shakes his head. “No, it’s, uh...putting some things into perspective. Maybe it’ll make me a better person.”

“Impossible,” Philip says. “You’re already the best.”

Lukas grins and kisses him again. He’s very much interested in never being separated from Philip again, but maybe if he keeps listening to Rachel he’ll eventually figure out that danger isn’t exactly lurking around every corner anymore. He and Philip are married now. He isn’t like Dour anymore. He’s changed, Philip has helped him change. He needs to accept himself. Love himself.

And Ryan is gone. Ryan can’t hurt them. Ryan won’t ever touch Philip again. 

Lukas kisses him one more time. “Eat that ring pop,” he whispers. “Then we gotta choose which cake we’re gonna smash into each other’s faces.”

Philip grins. “Sounds like a very good plan.”

~

Later on that night when they’re in bed, Lukas clears his throat in the darkness, and feels Philip shift towards him. 

“Do you think I was like him?” Lukas asks, voice low.

“Who?” Philip asks. 

“Uh—Dour,” Lukas says. “Was, I—uh—like him, in high school?”

Philip is quiet and Lukas can’t see his face and he almost wonders if he fell asleep. “Is that what Rachel said?” Philip asks. 

“Sorta, yeah,” Lukas says. 

Philip shifts even closer, the comforter bunching up between them. “No, I don’t really—agree with that.”

“She thinks he might be closeted too,” Lukas says, reaching down and smoothing his hand over Philip’s shoulder. “Maybe, like—lashing out, like I was—”

“ _You_ were under intense stress,” Philip says, a little louder. “ _You_ were being hunted by a fucking murderer. _You_ kissed me because you loved me, not because you were trying to have power over me like he did. He did it to hurt me, to intimidate me. He’s fucking gross and you were never gross. You had intentions, you were scared and trying to find yourself, and even if this guy is gay he’s a fucking dick. He’s purposefully nasty and rude to people and you—you just wanted to be who you were. You needed help.”

Lukas thinks about it, sighing. 

Philip cups his face in his hands. “You weren’t like him,” he says, sure. “You weren’t then and you sure as hell aren’t now.”

“You don’t think I wanted revenge on him because I want to right my own wrongs?” Lukas asks. 

“Maybe,” Philip says. “Doesn’t mean you’re like him. You could decide to throw our toaster out the window to right your own wrongs because I burned my hand on your toaster that time.”

Lukas laughs, resting his hand on Philip’s waist.

“You aren’t like him, baby,” Philip whispers. “You should tell her that. You have a good heart, you always have. You just needed to find the right path, find your confidence. Find some peace. Coming out and being chased by a lunatic who wants to kill you don’t really work well together.”

“You’re right about that, for sure,” Lukas says. 

“You’re good,” Philip says. “You’re a good, good person. Nothing like him.” Whenever he puts emphasis on that, on Lukas’s goodness, it makes his face flood with heat. He can’t believe someone so kind can think of him as good. If Philip thinks it, it must be true. It has to be.

“Okay,” Lukas says. “I believe you.”

Philip leans in, pressing their lips together. And Lukas thanks God that he has him.


End file.
